Comments on: I wish iTunes had tags.

By: iTunes Music Blog

iTunes Music Blog — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:15:54 +0000

I can\’t believe no one has made that point yet!!! Good work on really nailing down the correct approach. I\’m going to link to this from my blog roll, ok?

By: Lance Blaise of Tattoo Detectives

Lance Blaise of Tattoo Detectives — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:44:52 +0000

in the “genre” spot when you are in the regular view of itunes, you can type in there what ever you want. this will then add that as “tag”. Then in the future it will be in your dropdown.

By: don Simon

don Simon — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:01:26 +0000

I just want to say I’m so happy reading that there are others like me out there. These issues plague me, and allthough I eventually gave up and started using iTunes 1,5 years ago I still hate parts of it. Brian pointed out the main issue, apple makes good user interfaces, but they ain’t flexible at all, so specific needs – which we as music lovers obviously have – require weird workarounds…

I use comments for record label as for now (how can that not be a standard field??) but it seems like the best idea so far to extend it for all wanted tags (genre, remix etc). Thanks for the inspiraton.

Dave Clarke killed at I Love Techno!

By: Kevin Spencer

Kevin Spencer — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:20:04 +0000

You can type as many of your own custom genres as you wish in the genre field to “tag” songs. For example, for a Fad Gadget song, I have “mute, synth, 80s” in the genre field. Then when creating a smart playlist you can select “where genre contains…” and go to town.

By: amoeba

amoeba — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:49:59 +0000

oops – forgot to mention that my codes are all unique enough to not step on eachother or create false positives. the basic rule is something like “whose grouping contains…”

and of course you can put any number of codes or “tags” in the grouping field for items that span several of your pigeon holes.

i don’t bother with the genre stuff at all.

By: amoeba

amoeba — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:46:54 +0000

i use the “grouping” field to manage all my playlists. i made a set of 3-4 character codes that make sense to me, and then use the rules in smart playlists to manage everything. that, and the star ratings make itunes pretty useful to me.

for example, ROK-PSY-DWN, and so on are some code examples. dupes of the playlists with an additional “has at least 4 stars” let me trim out the fat even more.

you could do the same thing with the comments, but i like to leave that open for other things. sometimes tracks have made use of the comments already.

anyway, i think you get the idea…

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:04:54 +0000

Agreed Dave is great!

By: Blinky

Blinky — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:49:17 +0000

I think we should just petition to make Dave Clarke a genre in iTunes.

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:01:11 +0000

Another interesting thing is if you search iTunes help for Category the page that comes up is titled “Tagging songs for custom sorting and grouping” and funny on that page it doesn’t mention Category at all… By the way to view the Description and Category fields hit Command-J.

By: Oliver Chesler

Oliver Chesler — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:58:24 +0000

By the way what are the Description and Category sections “supposed” to be for?